Stop Scapegoating Black Women

Leave it to Oprah to finally bring me out of hibernation.

On her Friday live show, she brought together the principals in the Indianapolis case of the check-cashing clerk who prayed down the brother who walked in and tried to stick her up.

By Friday, everyone knew the story and had seen the video of Angela Montez screaming and crying and praying with would-be robber Gregory Smith. Very touching, no? The recounting of the narrative isn't what bothered me. It was the fact that, once again, a Black woman was essentially held out to blame for this.

Smith's mother, his "baby mama" -- a woman identified as Sherrie, and their 2-year-old daughter Amaya (who was celebrating her 2nd birthday that very day...) also joined the check-cashing clerk in-studio with Oprah.

When it was Sherrie's turn (http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/20091023-tows-praying-robbery/6), she burst into tears, saying that she thought she "drove" him to commit the attempted robbery by "riding" him to take care of his family. Smith has said repeatedly that he attempted to rob the store because he was unemployed and allegedly headed toward homelessness.

The girlfriend, through tears, revealed that she was a full-time student and that she was working full-time to support their family. She said, unequivocally, that she was the sole provider for their young family. She said that she was tired and stressed out and that it was hard -- which is why she "rode" him so hard to find a job.

Said Sherrie on Oprah: "I partially blame myself for constantly fussing at him, telling him what he's not good for and stuff like that."

Wow. Now, here's a young woman doing everything right -- working full-time and going to school full-time and parenting a toddler. Struggling? Yes. Overworked? Yes. Stressed out? Yes. Driven to commit a crime? NO. And yet the only thing Oprah had to say to this was, "So, you nagged him?"

Oprah, who has claimed for 20+ years to be all about the empowerment of women, left this young sister hanging. This young sister who was clearly in pain and still in shock about the irresponsible choice that the father of her child made to engage in criminal behavior.

Smith was applauded several times by the audience -- from the jail where he was speaking on satellite -- for being an Army veteran, for "doing the right thing" by not shooting the store clerk with the loaded gun he brought to the store, for praying and calling on Jesus to help him. Meanwhile the mother of his child -- the one who is working full-time, the one who is going to school full-time, the one who is paying ALL the bills, the one who has stayed on the right side of the law -- gets derided on national TV for being a "nag."

Not only that, despite the fact that his own mother encouraged him to turn himself in after seeing him on surveillance video shown on the news, Smith credited Angela Montez with speaking to him "like a mother" and with a kindness and generosity of spirit that he seemed to claim he had never experienced before. So despite listening to his mother talk about how she had supported and encouraged him always, and certainly recently through his unsuccessful efforts to secure employment, this young man credits the non-Black store clerk with gentle loving kindness -- and not his own mother, or the mother of his child who was keeping his butt afloat all this time.

Oprah's response to this? Nada.

I sat, frankly, flabbergasted by this and disappointed that yet again stereotypes about Black women were reinforced and underscored on this show. That we're hard and cold, that we're "nags," that we don't appreciate Black men and that the only women to show them love, affection and understanding are non-Black women.

And there Oprah sat, saying nothing. This woman who never misses a chance to let us know what she thinks -- whether it makes any sense or not -- who talks all over her guests and experts because she, of course, knows more than us all. This woman who, heretofore, never missed an opportunity to support, defend and uphold women.

This woman, Oprah, she said nothing. Except to ask the tearful young mother who is essentially single-parenting the would-be robber's child "So, you were a nag?"

At the end of their segment, the couple's daughter--celebrating her 2nd birthday on Oprah's stage--was brought out and squealed upon seeing her father on satellite, "Daddy! Daddy!" Over and over and over again. Squealed with delight and with love for this father with no idea that she was watching him from Marion County Jail. Ultimately I wondered what would happen to her.

Because Gregory Smith had a choice. He had a choice. He could have done what Black women do everyday and taken a job where he might have been underpaid and overworked, but at least was contributing to supporting his family. He could have done that. As a Veteran, he could have tapped into a myriad of resources available to him at the federal and local level -- including GI Bill educational benefits, to help provide for his family. He could have chosen to do what his girlfriend did -- work hard and go to school.

Let's be clear that although it is a blessing that he neither stole any money nor hurt the store clerk, what he did was not heroic. What he did was desperate and cowardly and it is only through the grace of God that he spared himself any worse trouble than he's already in.

Since Oprah didn't have the insight to say it, I'll say it: The real "hero" here is Sherrie -- the girl who has dated this fool since they were 15, who works full-time and is a full-time student and, clearly, takes very good care of Smith's beautiful daughter. She needs to know, unequivocally, that she is not to blame for what Gregory Smith did. She needs and deserves as much support as he will inevitably continue to receive.

We need to stop scapegoating Black women for standing in the gap and doing what they must -- for themselves and their families -- to survive.

Appropriately pissed,
Sabrina

Stay tuned...

This blog has NOT been abandoned. You'll be able to "hit back" again very soon.

Sabrina

Sisters are doing it...

Hey, Hit Me Backers!

You have shown LaVida and I a tremendous amount of love since we started this blog and just wanted to take a moment out to say thank you! There are a lot of words floating around the blogosphere and it means a lot that you take the time to see what's going on in our world.

I am certainly appreciative of the subscribers and those of you who are checking in from around the nation and around the world. From Louisville to London, you're reading and contributing to the dialogue. Keep it coming!

I've also been fortunate enough to connect with some amazing bloggers who are powerful voices in the dialogue around critical race theory and around gender, class and pop culture. All the thngs we love! It's a community that's incredibly supportive -- Afrobella has sent her readers here on more than one occasion and we are grateful for that.

I'm guest-blogging for the next few weeks at What About Our Daughters, whose owner, Gina McCauley, is one of those said amazing bloggers who I've gotten to know ever since we started Hit Me Back. Gina is also the founder and architect of the "Blogging While Brown" conference. I'll be cross-posting to What About Our Daughters and would love for you to check it out.

Thanks for reading. Don't forget to let us know you're out there! Leave a comment. As long as it's coherent, we publish them whether we agree with them or not!

Hit us back here, and for the next few weeks, Hit us Back at What About our Daughters!

Sabrina

Quick Hit Back— Lord Jesus, my people, my people…

Grandma Effie Mae Scott and Granddad Burnell Scott

How horrific! Burr Oaks Cemetery once owned by Ebony and Jet Magazine publisher John Johnson, was the only place Black folk could be buried. I too have many relatives buried at Burr Oaks Cemetery including my grandma Effie Mae Scott who passed last Christmas. It was something that continued to run through my head as the story hit the national news.

You are right Sabrina, this behavior is definitely connected to the escalating violence perpetuated in the Black community by Black folks. In parts of our community people now live in a climate where self-hatred and the pursuit of the all mighty dollar trumps everything. This is the only thing that could explain how Carolyn Towns, a Burr Oak manager and her cronies could do what they did and still be able to look at themselves in the mirror. Was desecrating the graves of the dead worth the chump change made by these folks?

What do I say to my family, particularly my mother who is still grieving the passing of her mother? What could I possibly say to my parents when they called last week from Burr Oaks’ bracing themselves for what they might find? What about Granddad Burnell Scott (Grandma Effie’s husband), a World War II veteran who died when my mother was eight? Was his plot disturbed? What about Grandma Effie’s parents, James and Annie Long? Would my parents find their remains discarded for money? What words of comforts could I even say to her in the midst of this tragedy?

Thank God my parents were able to determine that our loved ones were not affected by this travesty but they took no comfort. The sheer number of people, police and general sadness and rage impacted them. While they knew that our folks for the most part were ok (still waiting for more information on Granddad Scott’s folks) there were many people that walked away with the pain of know that they’re loved ones were impacted.

Yes we need to talk about the regulatory agencies that should have made sure that nothing like this could have happened. Yes Carolyn Towns and the others who did this should but placed under the jail and never allowed see daylight again. But I am still struck by a culture that normalizes the devaluation of Black life. I am troubled by the fact that I have become numb to it all including the pain and rage.

I am worried about losing my humanity…

LaVida

Quick Hit -- Jesse Jackson, go...take a nap

Jesse Jackson holding court in the center of the madness with families at Burr Oak.

So after unearthing even more human remains on the grounds, Burr Oak Cemetery has been formally declared a crime scene and for the time being shut down. My own father was one of many people who went out to Burr Oak in the rain on Friday, sat in a line of cars down 127th Street and was ultimately turned away. To date my family and I still have absolutely no information about the condition of our relatives' graves and probably won't for the forseeable future.

After failing to receive any assistance calling the 800 number or the local number set up by the Cook County Sheriff's Office, I sent an email to the address they set up (burroakinvestigation@gmail.com) and got this response:

Thank you for your inquiry regarding the investigation at Burr Oak
Cemetery. Everyone who sends an email will receive a personal
response, but we ask for your patience, as the requests have been
overwhelming. Thank you.

Now comes word today that Cook County Sheriff's will be processing paperwork at Eisenhower High School near the cemetery and that Jesse Jackson is leading some kind of prayer vigil for the families at the burial grounds today. Several friends called or texted to tell me about it and ask if I was going. My answer is a resounding "no."

Already I've grown weary of Black grief being publicly exploited during the course of this story. I can't take one more family member -- usually a Black woman -- on TV wailing about this. Let's face it -- our emotion makes great TV. And the thought of Jesse Jackson, once again, capitalizing on that grief is too much.

I don't know about anybody else but between being quoted everywhere and showing up at the Michael Jackson memorials in L.A. AND Gary, Indiana AND showing up behind Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart at nearly every stand up about Burr Oak, I've had just about enough of Jesse.

Haven't you?

The last thing we need right now is more spectacle. The last thing we need right now is rhyming and rhetoric.

We need less public grief and more answers. Less wailing and more strategy. I can pray and grieve privately -- and I have. I don't need Jesse Jackson's help with that. Jackson's Rainbow PUSH has helped families with filling out paperwork about family members buried at Burr Oak -- which, frankly, is the responsibility of the Cook County Sheriff's Department and what's left of Burr Oak's front office.

My faith informs that we come from the earth and to the earth we shall return. My faith informs me that my loved ones are not "there" in Burr Oak, but are with the Lord. I believe that and take solace in it.

But that doesn't mean that the people responsible for this unconscionable betrayal of the public's trust (and it goes far beyond the four who have been charged) shouldn't be held accountable legally, ethically and financially for what they have done. I don't want a public prayer vigil -- I want action.

It's been revealed that Illinois lacks tough regulations for cemeteries and the state has little regulatory oversight by law -- which ought to quiet critics who've tried to blame family members for "not visiting" Burr Oak often enough to do something about the lack of maintenance and oversight. Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes has just now started proceedings to revoke the trust fund license of Burr Oak's Phoenix-based owner, Perpetua Holdings.

If Jesse Jackson insists on being involved in the Burr Oak tragedy I hope he uses his influence to organize families to advocate state legislators for stronger laws on Illinois cemeteries. Help families sort out exactly what their rights are civilly and criminally as it relates to this case.

He doesn't have to hold court at a presser or a public "vigil" surrounded by news cameras for ANY of that to happen.

But I bet he will.

Still seeking justice,
Sabrina

The Souls of Black Folk -- The tragedy of Burr Oak Cemetery

Two dozen ancestors. Two dozen that I could count off the top. Probably more.

My Mother, Elizabeth. My maternal Grandmother, Louise. My maternal Great-Grandmother, Mama House. Her son, my Uncle Joe, a World War I veteran. Three of Uncle Joe's brothers -- Uncle Willie, Uncle Steve and Uncle George; two of his sisters, Aunt Angeline and Aunt Maz. Aunt Big Mama and her sister, Aunt Lil. Lil's husband, Uncle Allen -- a high school janitor who spoke three languages and read the classics for fun.

My paternal Grandmother, Mama Sweetie. Her three sisters, Aunt Annie Mae, Aunt Mattie and Aunt Gertrude, a WAC who traveled the world and was an equestrienne. Their father, my paternal Great-Grandfather Papa Levi, who "came north" to Chicago in search of a better life for his girls. My nephew's father, Big DuFray. Eunice. Corrine. Idella. Carrie Mae. Maternal cousins. Paternal cousins. Lots of them.

My childhood friend, Julie.

They are all there.

I sat disbelieving when I first heard there was a gravedigging scheme on Chicago's outskirts, with as many as 300 disinterred bodies, caskets and all, dumped into a mass grave and their plots resold and refilled for profit.

I collapsed into a slow-burning cry as I started calling the names of those ancestors...remembering where they were buried -- some since the 1930s -- and whether they had headstones or not. I kept coming back to my Mother. My Mother. My Mother. Ma. Mommy. My sweet, sweet Mommy who died unexpectedly in 2000 just 42 days after her own mother and is buried near my grandmother.

I remembered my extreme reservations about burying my Mother at Burr Oak in the first place. I remembered how shocked and disappointed I was the first time I saw the condition of her grave and the unpaved, uneven, poorly maintained, dusty road it took to get there. I remembered thinking that the grave in front of hers was too close and didn't seem to be anywhere near a casket length apart. So many nagging questions about the maintenance and management of this place that went unanswered. Nagging questions that I took to higher authorities to no avail. So many nagging questions that I finally made my peace with the bodies and souls of my Mother and Grandmother, and I stopped visiting Burr Oak altogether.

I thought about all of that. And then I got mad.

Because as I looked at the mugshots of the accused -- a cemetery manager and three workers, all African-American and all now facing felony charges of dismembering human bodies -- I wondered: just exactly what kind of trifling, gutbucket, soulless and depraved negro do you to be to do such a thing?

Who digs up the graves of their own people, dumps the bodies like roadkill and then resells the plots for profit?

The same people who shoot into crowded CTA buses and kill honors students. The same people who shoot in broad daylight in residential neighborhoods and kill little girls washing their dogs on the side of the house. The same people who kill 2-year-olds in isolated fields.

We don't even value our own lives; it stands to follow that we wouldn't respect our dead.

Carolyn Towns, a Burr Oak manager and the alleged ringleader of the scheme, is old enough to remember a time when Burr Oak and Lincoln Cemetery (where another slew of relatives are buried) were the only places where Black people could be buried here. For all we know, she might well have kin buried there herself.

Instead of honoring the history of Burr Oak, Towns and her cronies chose to desecrate it. She earned herself $300,000, according to Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart -- and a trip to the psych ward where she sits while awaiting court.

Instead of honoring Burr Oak as the final resting spot of scores of African-Americans whose history in Chicago dates back to the early 20th century, their bones were discarded in a pile, much like a heap of Lem's rib tips.

Instead of honoring Burr Oak as the final resting spot of notable African-Americans like Dinah Washington, Willie Dixon, Noble Drew Ali, Otis Spann, Negro League baseball players, Harlem Globetrotter Inman Jackson, jazz musician Malachi Favors, and, of course, Emmett Till, they dumped Burr Oaks' dead into a human landfill.

We survived the Middle Passage for this?

Towns even set up a bogus Emmett Till "memorial fund" and pocketed money from that too. She rolled the dice and profited from our long-dead but never forgotten.

But we have never, never forgotten. More than 2,000 people flooded the gates at Burr Oak on Thursday to try to make sense of this tragedy and learn the status of their loved ones. From what I understand, most didn't get very much information. Neither did I when I called the 800 number set up by the Cook County sheriff's office. My dad and other relatives are planning to go out there on Friday to try to sort things out in person but he has already warned that we should manage our expectations.

This is going to get worse before it gets better. This incident is not just about the four who got caught. The reality is they profited as much from their own desperate greed as they did from the chronically poor management and oversight from out-of-state owners and law enforcement who, for years, have turned a deaf ear to maintenance complaints and other legitimate regulatory issues and reported improprieties until they couldn't any ignore it any longer. Despite the best efforts of many, nobody cared all that much about the "Black" cemetery until it was time to show off the grave of Emmett Till or someone else "famous" who was buried there.

Someone must pay for these unearthed souls. Someone must pay for the double-stacked graves, and bones and skulls piled up and strewn about the earth like a ghoulish trash heap.

We must hold them accountable for what they have done. We must hold them accountable for my two dozen ancestors and many, many more.

It ain't over.

Seeking Justice,
Sabrina

Lessons from the Steel Mill...Understanding Papa Joe

Among the many notable oddities in the aftermath of Michael Jackson's death was the behavior of his iconic and, literally, iron-fisted father, Papa Joe.

We collectively cringed at utter lack of public grief over his son's sudden death and his cheesing, preening appearance at the BET Awards. We rolled our eyes watching him promote his record label at a subsequent news conference. We wanted him to be quiet and the family seemed to listen -- Papa Joe has once again retreated from the public's eye and Jermaine, sans that crazy, conked hair, has emerged as a formidable family spokesman.

But to really understand Papa Joe, you have to go back to the steel mill.

Papa Joe, now 80, worked in Gary, Indiana's steel mill, US Steel, for years, managing to eke out a meager living to support his brood of 9 children. The mill was steady work for many Black men of that generation. But it was dead end, heartbreaking, soul-crushing work that exploited the labor Black men provided it, while being firmly entrenched in the type of institutional racism that denied them promotions and raises that they deserved. And let's face it, Gary, Indiana -- "the G.I." -- ain't a great place to live.

For many of those men, if they had any opportunity to get out -- any at all -- they'd do it.

For my own father, just a year younger than Joe Jackson, working the blast furnace at the steel mill on Chicago's far Southeast Side was a way to save money for college. He was smart, professional and a solid worker -- exactly the type of man they wanted to keep on board.

My dad had a plan from the beginning that didn't involve spending the rest of his life working in a blast furnace and when he had amassed enough money to return to school and tendered his resignation, Dad's white supervisor laughed. Told my dad that a "smart boy like him" could go a long way at the steel mill and wondered aloud why he'd want to return to college. The supervisor initially didn't even turn in dad's name as having quit because he was so convinced that dad would come back.

My dad collected his last paycheck and never returned.

He always told this story whenever we were driving along Torrence Avenue the minute we got a whiff of the foul-smelling emissions from the old mill. He's grateful he was able to use that steel mill money as a springboard for a successful career in academia where he ultimately earned a bachelors, two masters, and is "ABD" on a doctoral degree.

For Papa Joe, escaping the steel mill and the limited life that came with it meant pushing his five oldest sons to perfect their musical skills in what would become the Jackson 5ive, the most popular pop group of its generation, and perhaps unbeknownst to him, to create the greatest pop singer and entertainer of all time, Michael Jackson.

While I don't condone Joe Jackson's style of parenting or business management, I understand it as the motivation of a bygone era. An era where a man's love was measured by how well he could provide for his family and how tough he could make his children to shield him from the harshness of a racist world. There's no mistaking that Joe is a cold and violent man.

But he's also very shrewd and disciplined, and whether we like it or not, laid the blueprint for superstardom of the man we mourn and celebrate today, Michael Joseph Jackson.

Thinking of Michael's own difficult relationship with this father reminds me of the passage in Toni Morrison's masterpiece "Sula" where Hannah questions her mother's love and Eva responds, "What you talkin' bout did I love you? I stayed alive for you!"

Watching the Jacksons miniseries on VH-1 over the weekend -- again -- reminded me just how desperate Papa Joe was to get his family out of Gary. Extreme tactics or not, like Eva, Joe Jackson loved his family desperately. He loved his family enough to get them out of the G.I.

I also thought of how accurately that desperation is captured in Samuel L. Kelley's stage play "Pill Hill," currently showing at Chicago's eta Creative Arts Foundation. eta is Chicago's oldest African-American cultural arts and theater institution and, ironically, is located just a few miles from the Southeast Side neighborhoods where the story is set.

"Pill Hill" follows the lives of six Black men, all close friends, over a decade between the early 70s and early 80s as they negotiate their own precarious relationships to Chicago's steel mill. Will they make it out and find good jobs that will move them into the nearby, prized Pill Hill neighborhood? Some of them do whatever it takes to make it out. Others are resigned to the relative financial stability the mill brings. Still others, like the protagonist (also named Joe) straddles both worlds -- smart enough for college but lured and pacified by getting those "next two or three paychecks" from the mill.

I took my father to see "Pill Hill" for Father's Day and he said it triggered a flood of memories -- some funny, some painful -- about this own tour of duty at the mill. Joe Jackson would probably say the same.

The ubiquitous influence of these mills on an entire generation of Black men -- its heartbreak, its blood money and its motivation for those who wanted out -- can never be underestimated.

It doesn't excuse anything either we, the public, or his own family dislikes about Papa Joe. But it certainly helps understand what he did for his family and why.

Missing Michael,

Sabrina